Less to this than meets the eye

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2002)

The basic idea of this film, someone who is born on a ship and never leaves it during his entire life seems interesting. However, the film, to me at least turned out to be a crashing bore, through which I fidgeted, fell asleep once, and turned on the display several times on the DVD player to see how much time was left.
The main character, the ship's pianist (just where he learned to play the piano, as well as how he got whatever education he had while never leaving the ship is unexplained) is evidently quite adept at jazz and cocktail music - viewers fond of these musical styles will have a lot to hold their attention through most of the film. As for me, the heavy-handed dialog, "meaningful" pauses and "deep meanings" made this one of the worst films I have ever seen. The replica of a World War I vintage ocean liner was very good, however.
One point, the initial timing of 160 minutes as contrasted with the actual time of 125 minutes, and the fact that the notes on the DVD box caution parents that the film shows a woman's breasts, while I did not see any, leads me to believe that the film was cut. Normally, this sort of censorship irritates me, but, in the case, I can just be grateful.